A key partner in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition on Tuesday condemned moves for a long term truce agreement with Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas.Education Minister Naftali Bennett, hawkish head of the religious nationalist Jewish Home party, said his party would oppose such an agreement if it were put to a government vote.“In light of the agreement being forged between Israel and Hamas, (Bennett) announced tonight that the Jewish Home Party would ...

Israel will reopen its only goods crossing with the Gaza Strip on Wednesday if calm is maintained, after having prevented most deliveries since July 9 over border tensions, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday. “Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman this afternoon held a situation assessment” with security chiefs, his office said in a statement on Tuesday. “In the meeting it was decided that if the quiet which has been maintained on the Gaza border continues until tomorrow morning, ...

Turkey’s foreign minister said on Tuesday he hoped his country and Russia could find a solution over the northern Syrian region of Idlib, a rebel-held enclave which the Syrian government says it aims to recapture. The Idlib region, a refuge for civilians and rebels displaced from other areas of Syria as well as powerful extremist forces, was hit by a wave of air strikes and shelling last week, in a possible prelude to a full-scale government offensive. Turkey, which has backed some rebel ...

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday Turkey would boycott electronic products from the United States, which has imposed sanctions and raised tariffs against Ankara in a dispute about the detention of a U.S. evangelical pastor. Erdogan said Turkey has been taking necessary measures regarding the economy, amid a slide in the lira currency exacerbated by the dispute with Washington, but it was important to keep a firm political stance. Switching to foreign currency would mean giving in to the ...

The ISIS extremist group has up to 30,000 members roughly equally distributed between Syria and Iraq and its global network poses a rising threat — as does al-Qaeda, which is much stronger in places, a United Nations report says.The report by UN experts circulated Monday said that despite the defeat of ISIS in Iraq and most of Syria, it is likely that a reduced “covert version” of the militant group’s “core” will survive in both countries, with significant ...

Saudi Arabia’s Hajj security forces held an annual military parade on Monday which was patronized by Interior Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Nayef. The ceremony demonstrated “the high professionalism of the security personnel in the Kingdom in the fight against terrorism,” a statement from the Saudi Press Agency read. READ ALSO: Hajj explained: Your simple guide to Islam’s annual pilgrimage Saudi Arabia will host two million Muslims this week as they ...

An antiquities museum in Syria’s rebel-held province of Idlib said to house one of the world’s oldest dictionaries reopened on Monday after five years, an AFP correspondent said. Dozens of visitors trickled into the museum in Idlib city to see what an official said represented just a fraction of the building’s collection. Ayman al-Nabu, head of antiquities for the city controlled by an alliance of rebels and extremists, said the museum had been damaged by air strikes and ...

A prominent Jewish-American commentator who has been critical of Israel’s policies said Monday that he was detained by Israeli airport authorities and interrogated about his political views before he was allowed to enter the country.The questioning of Peter Beinart was the latest in a string of incidents in which Jewish critics of Israel have been interrogated about their politics by border officials. The Israeli government called the incident a mistake.Beinart, a contributor to The ...

Egypt’s president said on Monday Cairo was deeply concerned about security in the Red Sea following an attack by Yemen’s Houthis on two oil tankers that forced Saudi Arabia to suspend crude shipments temporarily through the strait of Bab al-Mandab. Speaking at a joint press conference with his Yemeni counterpart, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi also said Cairo was committed to helping Yemen regain its security after more than three years of war. “We categorically reject that ...

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi stepped back from his commitment to abide by new US sanctions on Iran on Monday, saying his government would only respect the dollar ban in transactions with Iran. “I did not say we abide by the sanctions, I said we abide by not using dollars in transactions. We have no other choice,” Abadi told a news conference in Baghdad. Last week he said Iraq disagreed with the US sanctions on Iran but would abide by them to safeguard its own interests, ...